Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Maxim's NZVotes site has put up its electorate guide. This contains some demographic information, 2002 results, candidate information, and their candidate survey. The latter covers the current conscience issues: euthanasia, marijuana, marriage, gay adoption, hate speech and gender identity. In each case, candidates are invited to express their views in 50 words or less, then asked how they would vote. They've been rather more successful in getting answers out of candidates - though those standing for the larger parties still seem rather reticient compared to (say) the Greens or Unied Future.

Interestingly, they are only providing information on "major party" candidates, so the Alliance, LibertariaNZ, Christian Heritage and Destiny are all excluded. They also are not listing Maori Party candidates except in the Maori seats. I'd have expected a site aiming to be a resource to have made an effort to include all parties, on the basis that it should be the voters, not the media or other "gatekeeper" organisations, which decides who is elected.

4
comments:

One wonders whether the latest TV3 decision by the High Court has implications for websites that offer to host political commentary for the public good.
Posted by
Aaron Bhatnagar
:
8/16/2005 06:13:00 PM

Ideal policy would be to provide the information the public wants in order from the stuff they want to know the most to the stuff they want the least.

OR you could provide what you consider to be the most important information on all potential candidates but one would think not many people would go to that site.
Posted by
Genius
:
8/16/2005 07:28:00 PM